Flex 92's

I've been playing these on my bass for a couple of weeks now. Very cool, indeed.

Very, very dark, pizz but the sound also seems to be quite clear. With the Stick, they're fabulous. Coming from Spiros I find that there are certain things that I can't do pizz that I did before, but the difference in sound makes you play differently, anyhow, so I don't miss what I'm missing -- if that makes any sense.

At first they seem to be markedly softer in volume than the Spiros, but what remains when you forget about all of the high end and mid of the Spiros is great, strong fundamental. Also, after a few gigs and sessions, you figure out how to get a number of different effects (pizz), covering the gamut of dynamics and timbres. This all seems to carry into the room quite well, and maybe even betters than the Spiros, which can mush out acoustically in a room once the mids and highs have fallen off over distance. You have to have someone else play your bass to really appreciate the difference, I think.

These are pretty famous orchestral straings, so I don't need to go on too much about them as far as The Stick, other than to say that it's really refreshing to spend energy and focus on getting aspects of the sound that you want instead of tip-toeing around aspects of the sound that you don't want.

Currently I'm running a Spirocore E with the set, but will soon be trying the Stark Flex E to see how that goes. The Spiro E has it's nice properties with the set, but sounds a little thin next to the other three.

I haven'thad them side by side, but I would say that they're completely different animals. As far as feel, the 92's are far, far more user-friendly. 92's are not a gut sound at all, but are in that arena as far as darkness and projection of fundamental.

When I measured the E it was at lease one gauge too light for the set if not two. The Stark E is slightly beefier but then again, who can't use a littel extra E string to compensate for the Bass and lower Bridge hight on that string as compared to the A and D. The Stark will make the difference and not sound like a power tool when you Bow it.

I have a set of Stark Flexocor '92 on my "arco bass" and they are truly fabulous. Now I know why classical players just chuckled when they applied their bow to my jazz bass strung with Spirocores (or Animas, Superflexibles, Helicores, Obligatos, Corellis, you name it).

Granted, these are the stiffest of this kind of Flexocors, but I can't even begin to imagine playing a jazz gig with them. Except when I pizz on the G string in thumb position, and they sound fabulous (and very recognizable--I looked back at that thread on Scott Colley's strings and saw that he was using a Flexocor G, and I said "Aha! That's it!").

This all seems to carry into the room quite well, and maybe even betters than the Spiros, which can mush out acoustically in a room once the mids and highs have fallen off over distance.

Click to expand...

Nicely put. I notice that in a dense mix on recordings one of the things I like about spiros (that mid high thing) disapears and the fundamental I'm left with is thinner than the Dominants. The Dominants solo or in a sparse mix sound a little "plastic" and not as rich. I do like the note length I can get from spirocores and I'd be reluctant to let that go. I've had a suggestion of Permanents, and Flexocor but I haven't tried them yet. Guess I will. Yet another thing to spend money on.

Very, very dark, pizz but the sound also seems to be quite clear. With the Stick, they're fabulous. Coming from Spiros I find that there are certain things that I can't do pizz that I did before, but the difference in sound makes you play differently, anyhow, so I don't miss what I'm missing -- if that makes any sense.

Totally agree. I have Flex D and G on my Messenger EUB and they are really dark, which I like on those strings. Francois recommended these strings because I wanted to get rid of the nasal quality of the D and G strings I had before (Spiros, Obligatos). They work really well on EUB, haven't tried them on bass because I've been using gut D and Gs but the Flexs probably bow really well.

I found the G string to be greatly improved in balance on my EUB. The G string holds its own now soundwise and is very focused sounding and warm. I can actually dig in a lot more now on EUB.

I first started with these on my Alter Ego - the stock E works greaton the 'Basszooka', BTW, although you have to be little careful with pitch as it acts a bit differently than the other strings. When I came home to my Spiro'ed bass after a month on the stick, it took only one gig of deafening Spiro-ness to make me want to try the 92's on my bass.

I was playing a full set of Stark Flexocores when I had my Christopher. I found that it was a lot more difficult for me to hear what I was playing acoustically. However, through the amp they were very warm sounding without the "twang" you get digging in with Spirocores. They are very organic sounding. I don't think I will go back to them now that I am playing Velvets though.

Raymundo, could you compare the 92's with the FCS you tried a while back?...

Click to expand...

Totally different creatures. FCS are kinda like deadish Spiros and in the same ball park.

As far as tension next to the Spiros, I would say that 92's are in the same groove, but the sound is so different that it's hard to give a fair comparison other than to say what I just did. Coming from Spiros I didn't feel that I had to gain or lose strength into the string to get a sound.

As far as mixing a set of Spiros and 92's, I would probably bet against it working based on my current setup, which is 92's for A, D and G, and a Spiro E. The Spiro E sounds thin and bright next to the other three. Two or three more weeks from now if I still have them on, I'll hunt down a 92 Stark E and see how it does.

well i just put the g and d on, i ordered the A and E from quinn violins i think it was on sunday...ain't got them yet......

for all intents and puroposes you could say that both strings were brand new.

both strings sound great, these are flexocor '92 regulars. they both sound nice and dark. they do seem to have a little less volume pizz than the Eudoxa g did and the pizzicato d but i think that might come around after i put the regular A on and the stark E, i still have pizzicato A and E on the bass.

the flex g is less bright than the Eudoxa was but that might be because it is so much thinner in diameter, i think my string height was effectively raised just a bit......i wanted a darker string anyway.

Arco....i don't even feel i need to get into that, i didn't even rosin my bow (and i have some medium pirastro rosin which is pretty hard stuff) and it was awesome, they get started easily and sound great (very smooth) all the way up the G past the fingerboard....i do kinda like the edge brighter strings have once you get them going (like a spiro E) but i can deal with that once you get a string like that then the pizz is too metallic sounding.....maybe permanents would sound like that (damn i have problems)

the only thing i don't like is that they feel soooooooo thin after playing on some wrapped guts for a while, it actually made my left hand fingers hurt after some playing....but man it is so easy to glassando and do exaggerated vibrato type stuff with these strings, the winding is super smooth...oh yeah, pull-offs with the left hand sound good too.....i'll get used to the diameter.

so...i'm hoping that the pizz. volume will increase a bit once i get the a and e on the bass, the lack of thump might be making me think the strings aren't as loud though.

oh yeah my bass had some original flatchromes on it when i got it and these seem much better to me, the g on the FC's were horrible i thought, it was way brighter than the rest of the strings and that was before and after a new setup. i was fearful that this g would be the same.....it is not and i'm super happy for that.

the A and stark E are real nice sounding too.
no metallic sound at all, a nice thick rich sound, they produce a small amount of growl but it's not the same type of growl you get with the brighter strings, it's mellow and thick sounding i guess is the best way to describe it......mucho fundamental.

What color are the tailpiece and pegbox thread windings on the Regular Flexocors? I ask because I just bought what I thought was a Regular Flecoxor G string, but which may actually be an Original Flexocore G that someone inadvertently slipped into a Regular Flexocor package (the package is white with a purple stripe). The string I bought has purple windings at both the tailpiece and the pegbox. When I put the new G on, and played it with the 5-month old Superflexible D-A-E that were already on the bass, the sound of the new G seemed very similar to the Superflexibles: dark sounding, with about the same tension as the Superflexible G. The Flexocor G was a bit more focused, however, had a faster decay, and did have some growl. It also seemed "woodier," according to my listener, and seemed to produce a larger volume (not amplitude) than the Superflexibles.
Thanks.